


hold you here my loveliest friend

by demauryss



Series: je taime [3]
Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: And in love, Angst, M/M, eliott is hurting, it's just angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:40:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26370556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demauryss/pseuds/demauryss
Summary: eliott grapples for support then; for the dark diminishing around him, for the fall his heart makes at that very moment, “i needed air.”you. i needed you.in which love is a thorn and eliott's left with bleeding fingers every night.
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Series: je taime [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1671385
Comments: 5
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi hope you're all well!!! this is a result of something prompted on [tumblr](https://demauryss.tumblr.com/post/628716548932141056/17-maam)
> 
> hope you enjoy! title from crush by cigarettes after sex
> 
> happy reading!!!

eliott has a little notion of the first time he sets to have his heart broken into two. the memory is like a fresh wound - there, with all it’s tenderness transformed into prickly edges of a plant which keeps digging it’s ugly thorns into his chest. he has a little notion - maybe because it’s really not the first time - well, not the first time lucas looks up at him, eyes a striking contrast to the overhanging night sky, little pockets of stars acting like a buffer to reduce the thoughts in his head splintering to nothingness.

maybe it’s not the first time, you see, that lucas has looked at him, with his eyes a reflection of what eliott has always feared. and with each passing breath, plunged the thorns deeper into his flesh. not the first time that eliott has felt a stutter in his words as well as his steps. that he has stared at the ocean pulling him in. that he's felt the tumultuous force of the waves crashing against him and thought, _you ruin me you ruin me you've ruined me again._

but it’s just that; him and his thoughts on an evening at the start of autumn, taking refuge on a balcony shrouded in darkness, when lucas stumbles with a bottle through the doors in a flood of light - because of course he does - and eliott’s left to feel the tender wound swelling up again.

_“_ hey _”_ , lucas says, words blurring together and feet stammering for purchase before he gets him - before lucas, fueled by alcohol in his system and swallowed in a haze formed from the deepest of eliott’s thoughts, wraps himself around eliott like fragile tendrils of wines _,_ like sun around the leaves, _“_ you disappeared.”

_“_ yeah,” eliott grapples for support then; for the dark diminishing around him, for the fall his heart makes at that very moment _, “_ i needed air _.”_

_you. i needed you._

and it’s not the first time, you see. lucas wrapped around him like this, fingers igniting sparks like goosebumps, and eyes so wide eliott can’t help but drown drown _drown_. but it does feel like it - feels like eliott’s stepping into water for the first time, his footing loose on the ground and the waves cresting forcefully against him.

“but you need to come back,” lucas says, voice muffled in the lapel of eliott’s jacket. the bottle of whatever liquid he’s sneaked from inside burns eliott’s skin when lucas brings it to his lips and takes a sip. his eyes find eliott’s then, and says, “they’re playing dubstep. it’s no - ‘s no fun without you.”

eliott pries the bottle away from his hands, his fingers working gently against lucas’s wrapped tightly around the neck of the bottle. it becomes a difficult feat, with one of his arms steadying lucas by his waist and the other working to loosen the bottle from his hold.

“lucas,” he whispers, hands wrapping around lucas again when he doesn’t relent. eliott’s ribs tighten in his chest, held from bursting into splinters from the weight of lucas’s head over his heart, grounding his thoughts and making them transform into something formless at the same time, “you’re drunk and you need to stop if you don’t want tomorrow’s presentation to suck.”

eliott feels a crack somewhere inside him - a weak branch breaking from a tree - when lucas looks up at him, face undeniably close, eyes blessedly wide and blue blue blue. eliott inhales a breath which gets stuck in his throat and makes his lungs burn in a way he doesn’t want it to end.

“you always do this,” lucas mumbles, the end of his words catching on a hiccup. eliott takes it as a sign and reaches for the bottle again. but lucas knows. he always does.

“what?” he asks, voice equally low, brain now clearing the haze and sending a wave of ache through him which makes his stomach coil and heart bleed and the wounds on his skin tingle with the breeze of air passing by them.

“this,” lucas repeats, “this care for me and remembering stuff.”

“stuff?” eliott’s heart bleeds through his chest on his shirt. it stains the material, his hands, his face; all red and ugly and shouting _just look at me lucas._

“yeah - that,” lucas breaks apart, stepping back from eliott, taking his warmth and light with him, “you always remember even when - when no one does.”

_of course_ , eliott wants to laugh, _of course he would._ how can he not, when there’s lucas writing every constellation eliott tells him in the notes app in his phone; when he brings him burgers without mustard and coffee from his favorite cafe; when he talks like there’s sun pooling behind his eyes and moon entwined like silver strings in his words.

“and you would remember nothing if you finish all of that now,” eliott smiles, reaching for the bottle again. lucas looks at him then, and eliott feels a tremor in his bones when the light casts a shadow over lucas as his eyes move from eliott’s face towards his hand. lucas seems to consider it for a moment, and then he reaching out, too, before bringing his free hand to wrap around eliott’s outstretched hand.

eliott’s heart gives a jolt, the part of his skin next to lucas’s feeling like it’s burning and soothing all the same. he looks up at lucas - his eyes now the center of a storm brimming to wreck all that eliott is; all what he holds and cherishes inside his heart - all of him; all of lucas.

eliott watches - fixated - as lucas juts out his bottom lip. it’s that, a delicate and soft contrast to the torment currently eating his insides. lucas squeezes his hand, once, twice, till it becomes a memory ingrained in eliott’s muscle - warm skin against skin, soft ridges and lines he would later remember to trace.

he gulps in a breath, eyes moving to trace the sky looming over them instead. he’s afraid - so, _so_ afraid of lucas reading his face; of lucas finding what he’s so carefully tucked behind his skin after years of practice; of himself ruining every bit of breath he’s exhaled around lucas; of always running, always hiding.

“the bottle, lucas,” eliott’s voice doesn’t quiver like his heart. it’s much stronger, softer, and it gets lucas’s attention, who takes a look too long at eliott’s face before turning his head away.

“eliott,” lucas says, instead. eliott feels the palm of his hand in his, feels the way it clutches tightly onto him. lucas turns to him - eliott sees the pool of light in his eyes - and says, “i want to do it too.”

eliott smiles then, “what?”

“take care of you.” lucas breathes, his other hand coming to join their already intertwined ones following a smash which resounds with eliott. in that moment, there’s the bottle he was holding dropping to the ground, the glass giving it its form now in form of little pieces which littler the floor by their feet. eliott feels a squeeze, the broken glass reminding him too much of his state, and as he looks back at eliott, he feels nothingness in his chest in space of air.

and it’s not the first time eliott feels the words in his mouth. feels too short on oxygen to say anything else. feels like he may burst like the stars above him - forming hundreds and thousands of galaxies by their death. it’s not the first time that he wants to say - wants to tell lucas about the stars over him, about those in his eyes. about the universe and the sky and the daisy he saw on his walk home. and he wants to tell lucas that it would have looked good tucked behind his ear; that we care because we love; and that -

but it might as well be the first for when he thinks - he thinks being cared for by lucas is enough to piece together every part of the stars dying away. eliott’s only a reflection of one.

so he doesn’t. tonight, eliott doesn’t. instead he places his arm around lucas, and with the one clutched in his hold, squeezes lucas’s hand so tight he feels all the ridges, all the lines, and he thinks it shouldn’t hurt this much. it shouldn’t. but it does.


	2. murphy's law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. eliott just learns it the hardest way possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for mtea. hope you like this.
> 
> i've been at this for such a long time ahhhhh. but it's here finally, even if it's the first part. the second will be up soon.
> 
> happy reading :-))

The thing about giving your heart to your best friend is, you never actually see it happening. You don’t see it coming. It just happens. Maybe at the speed of tar moving over the road. Maybe at the way the sunlight fades behind the darkness of the night. Maybe in the blink of an eye. But it happens.

You see, they’re always there. You find their smile punctuated by the way they look at you, and their words sweet like honey and heart as warm as a stream of water on a hot day. The fluttering of their hands over your skin and in your stomach burning like the crackling fire you’d have stood in front of, smoke from the ashes mixing with the tears in your eyes as you’d have turned away. They’re always _there_ , so you don’t see.

(Maybe sometimes you do. Amidst fleeting glances and stopping heartbeat and sometimes, concrete as the sky and bottomless as the ground beneath your feet. You don’t.)

And it’s the best thing, those short moments where you don’t have to worry about someone else having a hold of your heart, twisting it to their desires. It’s the best thing about giving your heart to your best friend. Because you’re as blissful as you can be around them. Because you’ve always felt this welcoming warmth radiating from them which envelops your bones and makes a home for you inside itself, stopping you from stepping out of it into the unbidden cold, which is sharp and sinks itself over you.

And when your best friend gives their heart to you, you take it without any questions asked. You hold it close to the space where yours used to be. You spend your nights dancing through the grass and your days lifting the feeling slowly settling in your head, blurring your thoughts and fading every sense of reality. You hold on to their heart tighter than your own, and maybe that’s the first mistake you make.

Because then your grip on your own heart starts to loosen. Till a time comes that it completely shifts away from you. Because your brain is busy protecting your best friend’s heart and forgets the part of itself which you have given away.

And because. Because you let yourself. So there comes a time when your best friend hands your heart back to you. They hand it back, warmed and loved and wrapped in a curtain which makes it to look like it hasn’t been used before. They hand it back, a delicate bundle of fibers and beats mixing into one.

And you’ve spent so much time in cutting all the nerves and vessels tying you to that beating flesh. You’ve spent so much of yourself living without that part of you. And when you get your heart back, despite of your wishes, you don’t know what to do with it. You place it beck inside your chest, behind that cage tightening against the walls, hoping it would find its place back. But it sits there, a foreign and estranged piece of you; a displaced swing finding its equilibrium again; a stretched elastic held against its wishes to recoil.

Because you know if you let it go it would return to them in a heartbeat.

And that’s another thing about giving your heart to your best friend. The first time it happens, you don’t realize it. But the second time, when your heart literally crawls out of your chest, and walks away from you and back to your best friend. It rips your skin in the way, leaves your hands frozen, unable to stop the process, as you watch it run away from you.

And you watch, realizing that it will never be yours if you stop it now. So you watch. And you let it go.

And with it comes the realization that the thing beating inside you was never meant to stay there and hide. That even after they return your heart to you under the guise of doubts and ache, it’s ready to turn away in a second. That no matter the layers you put over it and the pain you go through to cover the fierceness with which it is beginning to tear itself from you; it won’t work. And there comes a time where you’re left to collect the pieces of your skin and the fibers your heart has left in its trail.

And that’s the worst thing about giving your heart to your best friend, you see. The realization, the feeling, the fucking knife which keeps on twisting in your chest and you keep screaming for it to _stop, just stop_. But the blood seeps away and the wound gets deeper and you find yourself filling it with the dust in your lungs and the shivers in your hands. But it fills your mouth with iron and your legs become studded with lead when you realize – you realize that no matter what, your heart will never be yours to keep after that.

Lucas’s mother owns a candy shop. When he hugs Eliott his hair smells of butterscotch and banana, all combined into one. It’s peculiar, but the thought fades into the back of his head when Lucas nuzzles his face into his chest, and as his hands squeeze the space above Eliott’s hips in a frantic cry of help.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, muffling a laugh behind the wild mess on Lucas’s head which needs to be toned down desperately – but Eliott isn’t complaining. “What is it this time?”

Lucas separates himself from Eliott, his lips puffed in a pout and eyes filled with a look of great disgrace as he grimaces. “Blueberry and basil! Like would you believe that?” He shudders effectively, his eyes going wide as he looks at Eliott. “It tastes terrible.”

Eliott shakes his head, “Terrible as in sriracha and peanut butter or terrible as in _terrible_?”

“ _Terrible_!” Lucas throws his hands up as he starts walking into the shop. Eliott follows him. “Like how you’d expect someone's locker to smell like after months of dirty clothes accumulating there.”

Eliott shakes his head, a smile playing at his lips, “That’s oddly specific, and besides, I don’t think it’s that bad. I mean, you said the same thing about orange and tarragon and it ended up tasting bloody amazing!”

“I knew you would say that,” The small rainbow embroidered at the left side of Lucas’s olive green sweater catches Eliott’s eyes when he turns around to frown at him. Eliott has half a mind to remove the piece of lint and fraying thread from it, like they used to do before. Pieces of wool caught on Lucas’s hair, eyelash on Eliott’s cheek. Dirt smeared on Lucas’s face, and charcoal on Eliott’s fingers.

He has half a mind to fall back into the circle he barely made out of alive, and blow away the lint for it to catch something somewhere else. But he stops himself.

They don’t do it anymore.

“What makes you think so?”

Eliott’s first memory of Lucas is from the same spot Eliott’s standing on with the two jars of Ali’s homemade orange marmalade. Lucas’s eyes are a shade of an orchestral blue which he finds tainting the memory, and there’s a troubled smile blooming over his features a minute later when he hears another pair of footsteps coming closer.

“Eliott, is that you, dear? Please help me in letting this devil know he’s wrong. You’re the only one who can help me right now.”

Lucas lets out a wounded groan, his eyes widening as he whispers, “ _That_.” Eliott smothers his laugh when Lucas starts to rush in the opposite direction to the resounding footsteps.

“I don’t work here and you never saw me.”

Ali nears into Eliott’s view just as her son disappears behind a display of colorful candies wrapped in pretty ribbons. Eliott, even when he was stumbling about his footing around Lucas, had always been awed by the intricate knots and the curves Ali has placed in the ribbons. When she approaches him, her eyes soften into a blue much like Lucas’s, but still on a different side of the spectrum.

“Lucas’s being a diva again,” she tells him, holding out a wooden spoon dipped in a questionable mixture in a purple bowl. It smells strongly of sugar and home, an exact opposite of what Lucas had so graciously – and wrongly – described. Ali holds out the mixture for him to taste, and he does so, dipping in a figure in the velvety warmth gathered on the tip of the spoon and bringing it to his mouth.

“It…actually, it tastes so good.”

He knows Lucas is hiding behind the shelves somewhere. Before, when it used to be as simple as Eliott using his fingers to do the counting on, or the stars simply dotting the sky without meaning anything, Ali would have Eliott and Lucas spending hours in her little kitchen, having them as the testers of whatever she would have made. It started out as a rush of a breeze for Eliott quickly picking up space before transforming into this pleasant routine he hasn’t departed from yet.

(Despite letting go of the person it all started out with.)

Ali’s smile brings Eliott into a cocoon of familiarity, “Tell this brainless idiot hiding here somewhere. I swear God really messed up when he gave Lucas those taste buds.” She shakes her head and Eliott laughs.

“Please stop talking about me like I’m not here,” He hears a muffled voice, one coming from directly behind him. Lucas emerges, licking around an orange colored candy which Eliott is absolutely sure isn’t meant for eating by him at all. His suspicion is confirmed when Ali gives her son a disapproving look, which he absolutely dodges when his eyes start burning brighter.

“And you please stop stealing the stuff I made which you previously rejected with those abominable taste buds of yours.” Ali bites back and Lucas turns a faux-offended face towards her. It’s familiar. It’s warm. It burns.

“I’ll have you know my taste buds are anything but that; very high in demand too. Tell her Eliott!” Eliott is more shocked on the mention of his name than the suffocating feeling the simple request brings as his lungs almost collapse on themselves. Lucas is unaware of the weight his words had on Eliott, as he struggles to keep his breathing even and heart forcibly inside his chest. There’s something very primal about this feeling – the one of tightness in his lungs and restlessness in his legs – something which takes him back to the very first time he’d seen Lucas a decade ago – right here in this candy shop with butterscotch in his smile and sugar in his hair, gripping Eliott in a saccharine tanginess bound to hold him for the rest of his life.

Lucas says something, and Ali threatens to catapult the bowl of the gooey mixture over his head. Eliott watches, silent, when Lucas shakes his head – all faux annoyed – as his mother stands rolling her eyes at her bratty son.

“Anyways,” Lucas says, looping his arm through Eliott’s at a place where a familiar burn seeps through the material of his shirt. “Since all of your attempts of stealing Eliott from me have considerably failed, can you let us go now?”

Eliott makes a sound of indignation in his throat. As if –

“As if you need any permission from me.”

Ali hasn’t even completed the sentence, and Eliott is being forcefully dragged towards the door. He’s always been amazed by the strength Lucas holds, now even more so when he finds himself just near the door between shouting a goodbye to Ali and taking his next breath.

“Hey,” Eliott starts when they’re outside. He’s resisting the pull Eliott has on him. It’s somewhere around the sun beginning to set behind the clouds. “Slow down, will you?”

Lucas looks at him, eyes narrowed as if he’s seriously judging Eliott, “Yann will have my head on a plate if we do.”

And Eliott would like to know where that we in this conversation came from. But before he does…..”And we can’t have that now?”

Lucas grins, “You know we can’t.”

Lucas Lallemant is a tide –

He’s a force which keeps on moving forward, carving shorelines and curved shapes in places Eliott finds hard to keep up with. He’s high when the moon comes, rising on his toes to offer Eliott a hit of the blunt curled in his fingers, sometimes snug between his lips. Sometimes he rushes away. Sometimes he crashes against Eliott – but then he slips out of the gaps between Eliott’s fingers, through the cracks in his skin – and settles somewhere hidden, alien, and then Eliott has to crawl – follow the trajectory he would have carved, only to find him crashing against his walls with a rhythm impossible for Eliott to match, to get hold of.

He’s a force which keeps on giving – to shores, to coasts. To the moss gathered on stone wearing with time and tide – with him. He gives – he gives till Eliott finds himself surrounded in every pore, every grain that is Lucas. He comes like this: little ripples on the surface of Eliott’s skin setting in motion

And that’s when he takes. The sand which lines the edges and the plants covering the base, tearing away their roots, dissolving them into smithereens much like Eliott’s heart in his hands and the blood in his mouth from biting his tongue too hard as it escapes; his heart among the waves melting on the floor and rising upwards, higher, faster. Till the blue of him surrounds Eliott in a lightning contrast against the warmth of his hands, resting, curling in his chest and plunging him into once deep then hallow darkness as he rises.

And when the ebb comes – Eliott drowns in it.

Idriss takes him by the lapel of his jacket onto the balcony once they’ve reached Yann’s flat.

“Hey,” he says, his voice weighted by the bass which beats under his feet. Lucas gets swarmed into the crowd, one part of it taking him, another forming a barrier for Eliott to reach him.

“How have you been?”

It doesn’t register in his brain; the grave being which holds Idriss's words together for Eliott. He hums out a non-committal response, which does little wonders to ease Idriss off of his case.

“Eliott,” the end syllable of his name catches on a sigh as it comes out of Idriss’s mouth. But he wonders. It’s his name, isn’t it? Then why does it feel so foreign when Idriss says it; like the _Eliott_ in his name and the _Eliott_ that he is are two completely different beings.

Outside it’s cold, but still there is a feeling of warmth – all nebulous and out of place. Eliott doesn’t know what it means, just that he isn’t used to feeling this way.

“What is it?” His voice feels hollowed, and it must have been a trick of light, but he sees Idriss flinch.

“You stood up,” his voice sounds equally grave, “again.”

Eliott has to grasp behind the lines to understand what he means. “The date,” Idriss complies, when he sees the lost look on his face.

Eliott stills for a moment. He was supposed to go on a date. But, did he want to.

“Idriss,” Eliott sighs, turning around and putting all of his weight on the railing, hoping it would swallow the thing weighing him down like mercury. “I don’t want to be set up on dates. You know that.”

Idriss doesn’t speak for a moment. But then, “You can’t keep doing this to yourself Eliott,” He lands a hand on his shoulder, “you can’t.”

Eliott stays quiet, he doesn’t know what to say. _What is it he’s doing, exactly?_ “Forget it-,” He says, at length, “- just leave me on my own. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Eliott feels it, inside him, the feling holding him getting impregnated with lead and rust when Idriss replies, “But did you – with Lucas?”

 _What_?

Idriss reads his confusion. “Did you talk with Lucas about the reason why he didn’t want to be with you anymore?” Eliott bites his tongue and something other than physical pain fills his senses at the soft reminder of what went down mere three weeks ago.

“No,” His voice sounds scratchy, like it has taken him a great strength to get the simple word out. “Lucas doesn’t owe me an explanation. Besides, you can stop feeling for someone you thought you liked, no?”

The air is still and Eliott feels desolate from the domain outside his mind. He almost doesn’t register Idriss and his quiet, “But can you?” Almost.

There, something burns in his eyes and his chest and his throat feels awfully familiar to a thorny stem Eliott has grasped in his hands. There, outside, as leaves begin to fall and Idriss lets out a small whisper of comfort, that Eliott feels overwhelmingly small and separate from the significant part of the universe holding Lucas and the currents of waves rising from his touch.

 _Just tell him,_ Idriss says and when he leaves Eliott chants a mantra of _too late too late too late_ in the havoc of his mind. And then Lucas comes, like a tide. He looks up at Eliott with fire behind the blue in his eyes and water raising it up instead of dimming it out. He takes away Eliott’s heart, yet again, the space in his chest feeling like a hollow piece of log left to be accumulated as moss on stagnant water and dew on drooping leaves. 

And when he leaves, he robs Eliott off of his breath like a flood does one of his belongings, leaving him wrecked and floating uncertainly in the sea of the world.

He makes a mistake one day.

They are on the roof of Eliott’s building. Lucas’s hands are covered in gold which glitters in his soul and the stars above. His tongue tastes of mulberry and wine when Eliott licks in his mouth. His lips bleed soft kisses into the place Eliott’s neck meets his jaw. His eyes are dusty asteroids which circle into Eliott’s orbit with a force which knocks him of gravity and his breath when they close with laughter as Eliott finds the particularly ticklish spot on his neck.

 _I’ve been waiting for this_ , Lucas says, his voice light and warm and so, so soft. Eliott feels a cloud of smoke in his lungs. _Me too._

He makes a mistake that day. He falls.

But then he’s standing next to the fire which Idriss and Yann created using plastic wrappers and leaves they found lying around. Lucas is a comet, the, his cold hands gripping Eliott’s as the fire pricks his eyes and the smoke in his lungs becomes a relic from before.

 _I can’t do this Eliott_ , He chokes, his voice heavy and sad and laden with so much hurt that Eliott has to take a step back. _We’re – we will be better as friends. I’m sorry I just can’t._

So Eliott swallows around the charred cage in his chest doing little to keep his heart still. _Okay_ , he whispers. Lucas’s red-rimmed eyes curving into a sad, watery smile burn like a star in Eliott’s gut.

He makes a mistake one day. He doesn’t stop falling.

November comes, and Eliott finds himself shifting between cold winds ruffling his hair and tinging his cheeks with a cold he feels in his bones. It takes him skipping rocks among dirt and catching falling leaves in the palm of his hand. It takes him to Lucas, nestled between the shelves in his mother’s shop, eyes wide and engulfing warmth as sugar and syrup drips from his mouth and stains Eliott’s shirt in a stubborn red.

Eliott sees Lucas, sees him coming for his heart, and the pang which rises inside his chest feels sound in the void which grows around him. It becomes foreign, the security the pain brings him. But he drowns in the cold warmth encompassing him when Lucas smiles and asks him about another constellation, or when he brings Eliott’s coffee from the shop on the curb – when they talk, and their once, five month relationship becomes a fleeting whisper; a puddle after rain gone when the sun came up.

They don’t mention it, and neither their friends. Somewhere between that, Idriss takes the hint and stops trying to get Eliott to go on dates. His heart grows accustomed to having Lucas’s hold over it, and the thorns growing in his throat shrivel. They don’t fall like Eliott thought they would, and sometimes it happens that Eliott feels them digging into his windpipe, swallowing his voice when he sees Lucas from across the room. Or when his eyes glisten like gold and honey all combined into one.

He keeps taking Eliott apart, piece by piece, but Eliott grows familiar to the feeling making a home inside him. And when Lucas holds his hand and points to a falling star much like Eliott looking for a place in the universe, it doesn’t hurt.

Except when it does.

There’s a hole in his jacket.

Eliott finds it the noon he’s inside the video store he worked at. He must have gotten it when he’s jacket got stuck in his neighbor’s fence, and in his haste, he must have pulled it, hard.

Lucas finds it funny for whatever reason when Eliott delivers him the news with sadness. His laugh rings through the speaker of Eliott’s phone. “You and that jacket, I swear.”

“It’s my favorite,” Eliott says, hoping his tone would convey his feelings to Lucas, “It’s been with me through thick and thin.”

“Yeah I know,” Lucas sounds solemn, “We’ll make it right,” Eliott believes him.

“But listen,” Lucas pauses, then begins again, “the reason I called you – I wanted to ask you something.”

Eliott holds on the phone, “Yes?”

“Sarah let me off with two passes for this art exhibition tonight. I wanted to know if you – if you’d go with me?”

Eliott’s chest gives a resounding ache which travels like water through his body, chilling his fingertips so much he can barely feel the phone held in them. The thing is – they don’t do this anymore; this _just Lucas and him alone_ thing. He hasn’t done anything like this in such a long time that he forgot what being with Lucas – _just Lucas_ – is like.

And he can't wait to remember. So. “Yeah,” he breathes out, “of course I’ll go.” With you.

“Perfect,” Lucas’s voice hold quiet happiness, something Eliott is sure is so fragile he’d break it if he takes another breath.

So he holds it, deep inside his lungs when Lucas says, “I’ll be at the store at 6:30. We’ll walk together.”

And he holds in when he says goodbye, a promise tethering on the edge of something so strange yet so comforting at the same time. His lungs burn, and his chest caves in.

But Eliott gets to work.

Evening drags November to a cold, scruffy end. He can’t feel his hands when he accounts the last of the sales into the computer. It hits close to six when he finishes, and decides to spend the rest of the time till Lucas’s arrival sorting out the DVDs left on the counter.

It’s between that, one moment picking up the assortment and the other spent looking over his phone lying on the side as it lights up with a notification, that there’s the sound of someone closing the door behind them.

Eliott whips around, heart in his throat at the prospect of seeing Lucas, but the person standing in front of him takes him by surprise.

“Hi Eliott.”

Lucille’s smile is warmer; her hair is shorter, blonder. Eliott takes a hard minute to reply.

Lucille,” He’s sure his tone doesn’t do justice to the feeling she brings inside him. It’s been long – a long time since he last saw her. And that too ended on _partial_ good terms.

But still he tries his best to smile.

“How have you been?” He asks, awkwardly placing the DVDs from where he picked them up. Lucille shrugs her shoulder, and a small laugh leaves her lips.

“Good, I’m good.” She says. Eliott nods, then, and tries to shake off the uncomfortable tension settling around him and over his shoulders. Lucille comes to his rescue, thankfully.

She points to the array of movies behind him, craning her neck to the side as she speaks, “I – I needed a recommendation, actually.”

Huh. “The movies. I – I kinda need one for uhm- this date night. My girlfriend- uh, Sophie is into screenwriting and stuff, so I want to do something to impress her.”

Eliott turns his neck sideways, “And I’m the only one you can come to for that?”

Lucille smiles sheepishly, “You know you are.”

He laughs, bright, and turns to sift through the movies he pretty much knows her girlfriend will surely appreciate. He’s always loved doing this, rec-ing stuff when asked – whether it be movies or artists or funny enough, dubstep artists to listen to.

(The credit for the last one goes mainly to Lucas, and Eliott feels proud to share that at least he’s helped him get into the kind of music he himself loves. Even when the insults Lucas throws after listening to the music are worth keeping in a jar and remembering for later.)

Lucille takes the movies he picks out.

“How are you and Lucas?”

Her tone carries an infinite amount of casualness which Eliott is sure she isn’t faking. But it makes him still – _you and Lucas_ in a sentence together. They don’t go like that. Never have.

“We uh – we’re not together anymore.” He says, voice low and taut as he rings her up. “Uh- yeah. We broke up.”

Lucille is silent. Then, “Oh. I’m sorry.”

He stays silent. When he’s done with her items, she takes it from him without a word _. I’m sorry_. It’s funny how many times he’s heard that.

“Um- Thank you,” She’s quiet, soft. Eliott smiles, as terse as that may be. “I’m happy to see you, Eliott.”

“Yeah, uh, I’m happy too.” He admits, because he is. Because she’s familiar. Because he _knows_ her.

Lucille smiles, as she clutches the items to her chest, “If – If you’re free some time, I’d like for you to Sophie. She uh - knows about us, and I’m sure you both will like each other.”

“You’re _sure_?” He teases, and she slaps him lightly on his arm; _familiar_. Rolling her eyes, she bites back, “Yeah, _idiot_.” Eliott laughs; it’s warm.

“I’d love to meet her,” is what he settles on, and it’s what which has Lucille brightening up further. “Great,” she says, and leaves Eliott not before rising up on her toes and giving him a half-awkward, full warm hug which Eliott gladly accepts.

When she leaves, it becomes a game of watching the hands on the clock move. It’s fifteen minutes over the time Lucas and him and decided. But still Eliott sees no sign of him. He’s worried. There’s no text or call from him either, and Eliott knows he could do so too, but it doesn’t guarantee him not sounding desperate.

Five minutes to seven and he gives up, closing the store and walking out into the clear night sky. He spots a couple of uncluttered, adrift stars he doesn’t know yet. Cold air nips at his skin, eyes search for the sign of the familiar boy walking towards him. But he finds nothing.

He sighs, then, and starts walking in the direction of his apartment. Maybe something came up. Maybe Lucas is okay. Maybe he forgot. Maybe maybe maybe.

It’s then that the phone in his holed jacket rings, bringing him back to the now. He hustles to take it out, and as Lucas’s name blinds his eyes, his heart returns with a hopeful tingle in his chest.

His breath fogs in the dark as he whispers, “Hello?”

“Eliott,” Lucas’s voice feels distant, like they’re the same poles of a magnet and the field between them is just pushing them away.

“Lucas, are you alright?” It hurts, that it’s the first thing which comes to his mind. That something happened to Lucas – _with_ Lucas, and he wasn’t able to make it to him. He hates it. He hates it.

“Yeah uh – I got held up. I’m sorry I couldn’t- can’t make it. I just – I didn’t – couldn’t find time to call you sooner. I’m so sorry I -.”

Eliott cuts Lucas off, “It’s alright,” his heart beats on the floor. His legs remain frozen on the sidewalk. It’s not Lucas’s fault if he found something more important than Eliott. He doesn’t owe him anything, anyway.

Eliott doesn’t hear the rest which follows. There’s something – someone on the phone behind Lucas, someone who calls Lucas – “You’re coming back Lu?” Eliott hears the voice.

Then he hears Lucas, loud and clear, “Yeah, baby, you go ahead. I’ll be with you in a second.”

 _Baby_. Lucas only ever called Eliott that. He feels something twist inside him as his lungs burn with a ferocity which leaves him aching all over. His fingers go numb, and his feet drag painfully on the gravel.

Lucas seems to be talking, and Eliott only catches the end through the static in his head.

“I gotta go. But I – I promise I’ll make it up to you, Eli. Okay?”

Eliott purses his lips, doesn’t fight his hear combusting as a layer of heavy rust settles over it, preventing it from moving back to Lucas as he lies motionless there, on the concrete, forging stars from its dying matter.

 _Okay_. Eliott whispers when Lucas hangs up. Then he releases his breath and starts walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please share your thoughts as i would love to read them. come say hi to me on tumblr: [@demauryss](https://demauryss.tumblr.com/ask)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!!! come say hi to me on [tumblr](https://demauryss.tumblr.com)


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